We Are All Made Of Stars
by Mala
Summary: Post-"If The Wheel Is Fixed", Tyr is soaked in melancholy. Will Beka's presence make a difference?


Title: "We Are All Made Of Stars"  
Author: Mala  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
Fandom: "Gene Rodenberry's Andromeda"  
Rating/Classification: 'R' for language, angst, Tyr/Beka, hints of slash.  
Disclaimer: blah blah Fireworks blah blah Majel Rodenberry blah blah  
Summary: "If The Wheel Is Fixed", the S3 premiere, sucked immensely, but a few interesting things came out of it. The shippiness, of course...and the indication that Tyr no longer had his bone spikes. At least that's what I got out of the last scene. So, what is happening to our favorite Nietschean?   
  
A Nietschean's primary instinct is to survive. Beyond all else. Survival of the fittest, Propagation of the species.  
  
But for a time, he had no instinct of the kind. He simply wanted the light, the silence, the beauty of nothingness. And he awoke from that blanket of stars, shocked back into the technicolor space of friends and danger and reality and his blood pumping in his veins, with a human woman's taste on his lips. With that taste on his lips and a unfamiliar smoothness on his arms.  
  
He has been doubly punished for his failure.  
  
The unseen forces from the tunnel that weakened him have unmanned him most royally. He has no bone spurs. He has no self-respect.  
  
Would that he had stayed in that tunnel, lost, rather than returned to this existence full of questions and mysteries and...mediocrity.  
  
He cannot sleep. Stays up for hours and hours on Obs Deck, gazing out at the stillness of space...listening to the mocking laughter of, and thousand recriminations from, a legion of Kodiak dead. Are they not glad that he has a son to carry on their line in his stead?  
  
Footsteps jerk him from his maudlin reverie. Too light to be Dylan's. And for that, he is thankful. Dylan Hunt, with his idealism and his kind words and something...something that might be love, is not someone he relishes facing when his moods are darkened thus.  
  
But the barest scent of new leather and wildflowers cuts short his relief. A stay of execution from the man who holds his heart does not save him from the woman, it seems.  
  
"Tyr?"  
  
"Beka." He inclines his head, acknowledging her presence, but cannot dare to look. Ever since that day...that long stretch of hours...he has kept his eyes averted from the damning remembrance on her face. Simply because he cannot avert his mouth from the memory of her ardent kisses. Or his body from the feel of hers pressed flush against it.  
  
"I...can't sleep," she admits, quietly.  
  
"The silence is...unsettling," he agrees in understatement.  
  
"Unsettling...tempting." She sighs, dropping down onto the other curved bench a few feet away. "I want to go back there, Tyr. I want to go back to where we were."  
  
The query is hesitant. "D-do you remember anything?"  
  
"No...just the want. The need. The flying. It was like doing Flash, Tyr. Like being completely and totally free."  
  
"Is that...is that what Flash is like?" he shivers, suddenly chilled to his very core. Before, he referenced her addiction with scorn, with disgust. But now...now he can finally understand the seduction of it. The beauty of that chemical oblivion.  
  
But, if he stops and contemplates, he is fully aware that this change...this change has been a long time coming. It is not simply the tunnel, that cold sleep of gorgeous death, but his life since joining the crew of the Andromeda that has softened him, made him susceptible to such mortal failings as lust and compassion and love.  
  
He wonders if she notices his lack of gauntlets. The others have been careful not to ask...afraid of a torrent of Tyr rage...despite the fact that it is no longer in his nature to snap a harsh word at Harper or mock Dylan's ridiculous honor or lock eyes, mutinously, with Trance. They still hold onto a modicum of fear, it seems. But since when is Captain Beka Valentine anything less than fearless?  
  
As if she is still hauntingly in tune with his thoughts, she murmurs, almost to herself, "You came back different. That's what's troubling you, isn't it?"  
  
"I am...virtually...*human*," he growls with distaste, flexing his arms and watching the smooth ripple of his dark skin, uninterrupted by bone.  
  
Her clothes whisper and slide against her skin as she moves. And then she is crouched on the floor next to him...her fingers on his chin, tilting his face towards hers. "Is that really so bad?" she wonders, meeting and holding his gaze...almost daring him, this time, to look away. "Humans get to make mistakes, Tyr. We get to think about more than just who's the biggest and the strongest. We get to tell jokes and laugh...we get to fall and get back up again...we get to fuck because we like it." At this last statement, his eyes are drawn to her mouth...the slightly swollen flesh of her lower lip. "What's so wrong with that? Can you tell me?" she whispers. And, this time, the brightness in her gaze is not from any drug...not from any ghosts inside a tunnel...  
  
She desires him. Since their return, she has not shied away from his side, has not kept her eyes lowered, has not been afraid of the tenuous memory of their bodies entangling. It is he who still holds onto a modicum of fear.  
  
"I can't..." he gasps, gently removing her hand from his face, resisting the urge to rub his bristly cheek against her soft palm.  
  
"Can't what? Tell me what's so wrong...or kiss me again?" she wonders, eyes dancing with challenge.  
  
"Beka...leave me in peace. Alone," he begs of her, leaning away, endeavoring to find solace in the stars once more.  
  
Perhaps her reply, in the past, would have been tart and flirtatious...but now it is simply quiet, full of conviction. "I think we've both had plenty of time alone," she murmurs, rising up on her knees. "And 'peace' is relative," she finishes into his lips.  
  
And the fluid shock instance of her kiss is an invitation to accept his forced humanity. An invitation to make this mistake. To fuck her because he likes it.  
  
He is not an uncivilized creature.  
  
Not even in this new incarnation.  
  
How can he turn down such a generous offer?  
  
He gathers her close, their mouths fusing and fighting as his head spins like the ship in slipstream. Taste...touch...sensation...her fingers sliding up and down his arms...and he is oddly grateful, in this moment, that there is nothing to stall and cut the callused pads of her fingertips. She pushes him back along the bench, straddling him as she works the catches of his leather pants and slides the vest from his shoulders.  
  
"Let me bring you down to my level, Tyr...you'll like it here," she teases, softly, as she licks a trail from his navel up to his exposed throat.  
  
As he shudders beneath her tongue, he hears his own hoarse admission. "Madam...let me assure you...I was already there." And he likes it... no...*loves* it here. Beneath her, drowning in the sensual imperfection of this so very basic instinct.  
  
A Nietschean's primary instinct is to survive. Beyond all else. Survival of the fittest, Propagation of the species.  
  
But, now, he is no longer quite Nietschean. He is just a man.  
  
Just man enough for Beka.  
  
As she is more than enough woman for him.  
  
At least for a time.  
  
--end--  
  
October 9, 2002.  
  



End file.
